22 Foxhole East

f0xh0les

Erm, you might not have a job to go back to after Xmas if I was allowed to write reports!


Got busy this morning,
Tidied house
YS supermarket raid
Made crumbles and Eve's pudding with p/a apples - 15 apples left
Got back up my ladder and painted hall coving - from baby poo brown to white - wil need another coat but shows promise
Inventory / Menu plan / 3 item shopping list for the week
Another load of laundry (yawn)
Lists made for the week!

I am poor until Friday, when suddenly I am loaded again.

Got the kids ransom demands - DS1 only asked for 4 things. I still have his birthday list from October, so will have a look and see what he wanted but did not get last time.

f0xh0les

Now, if we were to have a competition as to who had the nicest white shiny coving in the hall and living room, and who has a lovely white ceiling rose (not luminous green weirdness) then I might just win. :j

In fact I could do a victory lap all around the house, on my rather sore arches due to standing on the ladder for hours, waving my rather sore stiff arms above my head, doing an amazing impression of one of those gibbons crossing a road ( optional David Attenborough voice over).

So, that was a huge chunk of my day - but I did discover that chalk paint is practically odourless, and much nicer to use than the horrid sticky nasty stuff I was using yesterday. As it is all on the ceiling I do not need to worry about how hard wearing it is, as nobody is going to touch it. It looks fab!!

So 2 jobs off the list.

I am very bored of being poor. Roll on midnight on Thursday!

DH is off on a jolly tomorrow night - he is v unimpressed some royals are visiting, and the campus has been majorly tarted up over the weekend. He even caught 2 people practising curtseyng in the corridor. Good thing they are only doing a flying visit or he would probably dress up as the Queen of Hearts and go running across the Students' Union shouting 'off with their heads'. Strangely he has not been invited to the reception. Not high enough up yet. He would not go anyway.

Waiting to see if any of the kids come down with the lurgy going around - headaches, tummyaches, sleepiness etc

I am waiting for money so I can knock a load of jobs off the lists. Little things like a Xmas/winter themed duvet for ds 3& 4, and oh, maybe a present or two? Only £30 on the cc this month. Doing well.


Not one single solitary parcel has arrived from my voucher spends.
In fact I have not had any post since Saturday.
Not sure this is allowed!
Postie still feels the need to leave elastic bands on my front steps though. The kids love it. What age do boys stop being excited by elastic bands? maybe never?

kerri_gt

Well done on the painting f0xh0les i still have a lone windowsill to do and get a blind up before xmas but has it been done yet...has it heck!
(I also discovered the stainwood paint I have is not water based - yuk, hate painting with solvent paints, but as there's over 1/2 a 2.5ltr tin left, I'd better just suck it up - well not literally obv....)

I have images of your OH as an extra from Alice in Wonderland (the Johnny Depp version which i rather enjoyed)

Some of my BF parcels have arrived already...one is taking a long time to get through the Hermes network...I'm a tad worried as it's for OH xmas :eek:

f0xh0les

I am with you on the ridiculous delivery dates Kerri I ordered a little telescospic curtain rod last week, it says it will be delivered 10-18 December. They lie! and Hermes is absolutely rotten. Full stop,

They left a parcel last week behind my bins. Not a problem for me as I am obsessive and check on my orders at least once a day, and they always deliver in the 35 minute window the house is empty - school run times are not good times for delivery!

So, on my still to do list, is the service and mot for my car, which I tend to do the week before Xmas and then panic buy presents with whatever is left. I am going to get it done the first week of December and then be calmer. Stalking a PS4 this year.
I have done well with my Xmas bargains for many years.
This time I am biting the bullet and they are getting what they want.

Nice competition here

https://www.visitleicester.info/christmas-competition

DS3 has just appeared complaining of stomach aches and back pain and angling for the day off school.... it is probably tree related y'know.

I may get very little done today if I have a shadow.....

crazy_cat_lady

Hope your ds is feeling a bit better now f0xh0les, and that whilst he is lying all poorly on the sofa he's looking up at the ceiling and admiring the coving...
I think with Hermes it really depends on your driver you know - I used to have a lovely bloke that would always put a parcel in the shed for me, but the new one just keeps leaving cards with no contact details then I can't ever get my parcels. Ugh.
I am waiting for deliveries, but it's not panic time just yet.

f0xh0les

DS 3 is hungry, chatty, and has been following me around all day.
He is driving me nuts.

But was not well enough to stay at school.
He will be going back in tomorrow unless he is actually physically sick

I have barely got anything done apart from make him cups of tea and snacks and a quick tidy around. He has been busy playing with his ' make a snowman and watch it melt' plastic clay toy thing, and watching tv programmes about Nazis and the guillotine (??) oh well, it is educational I suppose.

greenbee

Next time give him jobs to do. He may not be well enough to stay at school but he needs to know that if he's not in bed, asleep (or actually puking) then he will be given things to do...

I'm sure there is something really dull you could find for him

f0xh0les

I brought him home and stuck him in a nice warm bath (for about 45 minutes) in the hope it would ease his soreness, and then popped him into his pjs and dressing gown under a blanket on the sofa, he ate his packed lunch, asked for 2 rounds of toast for a snack at 2pm, ate all his supper at 5pm and was first in line for flapjacks at 7pm, so he can eat, and agrees he is not ill enough to be off school tomorrow.

I have a sneaky suspicion he wanted to see what I was up to today, in case it had anything to do with Christmas, which of course I was up to my elbows in when school rang. So he watched me sewing ribbons on to advent calenders. He was bored after about a half hour.

kerri_gt

F0xh0les you should've given him a tub of Christmas ball cake decoration things and ask him to count, check and weigh each one while being ill on the sofa :rotfl:

f0xh0les

Well it is December already, and I have the (sad) figures......

Mortgage currently £100, 896.17 after the normal payment goes out. Which is a long way away from where I wanted to be... in fact it is £896.18 away from where I wanted to be.

Cannot make another overpayment until MOT/Service on 12th and all the Xmas presents still need to be bought.

This is going to be a big one, as there is a tablet for DS4's birthday, a PS4 between DS3 & 4 for Christmas, 2 phones for DS1 & 2 as they have both managed to break theirs (they were old ones of ours that had sat in a drawer forever waiting for them to be old enough to need a phone so really they lasted very well), plus steam vouchers and a tv for DS2 so his x box can move into his bedroom to make room for the PS4 downstairs. Hopefully stopping all stupid arguments and annoyances and leaving me to read a book made out of trees while burning light made out of wax.

DS1 has asked for a gaming computer - I told him that there is no way on this planet he is getting one before he finishes his GCSEs in May. I would need my head read to do such a stupid thing. He suddenly got it. He totally understands where I am coming from. He knows it will be a massive distraction. Realization has dawned.

Made mice pies this morning with passive aggressive mincemeat with brandy made by m-i-l, the paper on top was mouldy. So not only p/a, but also f-u. Scraped the top off and used the rest. It is rubbish, it is also gone! yay!
Will get some supermarket stuff when I go next, which is not today.

Tried to use up some g/f stuff left over from m-i-l visit. Still have corn spaghetti and a pack of madame Crimble pastry mix, so I made up the pastry and it smelled so strongly of fish - like a cod liver oil smell - that I had to thrrow it away. So annoying as I had already added spread and sugar. What a waste!!

Not doing much more today. Feeling bleugh. So on the sofa with 2 hot water bottles, supper will be a sausage and root vegetable stew, so no shopping required. I have everything in for lunchboxes tomorrow, and no after school clubs tonight.

Thinking about new year's resolutions...
want to reduce plastic use - which means going back to bar soap. already ditched the straws, and found paper cotton buds, already recycle, but need to start reducing what I bring into the house. A lot gets reused as storage jars too.

Found jars of hair masks for 11p in Mr T's, and 'essences of herb' shampoos for 22p, so bought a few, and 40p deo, which will all keep me going for a good long time.

Step-gran has asked for me to go over after Christmas for a few days as she wants me to 'sort out some things', which will involve me cleaning the carpets where she has thrown stuff all over the place with her shaky hands, and probably the bedroom rug, where she has missed the commode. Honestly, why she bothers to pay a cleaner who thinks she is too good to get on her hands and knees I really do not understand. It is not even a 5 minute job.

So I have had a quick look at flights and I think I can afford it if I go just after. DH starts teaching again 2nd week of Jan, so it has to be early on. Kids back at school second week of Jan, so it has to be early. DH not impressed. Seriously unimpressed.